Young dominates Nationals

May 2, 2007 - 5:54 AM
SAN DIEGO (Ticker) -- The San Diego Padres sputtering
bats managed just enough offense to support a stellar start from
Chris Young.

Young went eight innings to lead the Padres to a 3-0 victory
over the Washington Nationals on Tuesday.

The 6-10 righthander (3-2) yielded just three hits while walking
three and striking out eight in his best effort of the season.

"I was just trying to execute good pitches," said Young, who has
yet to surrender a run in 15 innings at Petco Park this year.
"It's a good winning formula. I just made enough good pitches.
Overall, it's a good win for the guys and I'm happy that we
were able to bounce back a little bit."

"It was a great outing by Chris Young," Nationals manager Manny
Acta said. "I think all of the credit goes to him. He was just
dominant the whole night. He kept that fastball up and we kept
chasing it. You can't take away what he did, regardless of what
our offense did. He just cruised the whole game."

Trevor Hoffman pitched a perfect ninth for his sixth save.

The Padres had dropped five of their last six games coming into
Tuesday's contest, scoring just 20 runs combined in the six
contests. The offense managed just four hits against Nationals
starter John Patterson on Monday.

The story was no different against Nationals' starter Shawn
Hill, who had given up just two earned runs in each of his first
five outings this season. He matched Young pitch-for-pitch for
much of the first six innings.

"I thought I threw the ball terrible, personally," Hill said.
"I had a lot of hard-hit balls, a lot of flyballs, which is not
good for me. They were just hit at people when they were hit
hard. I kind of kept us in it a little bit, but I really didn't
throw the ball the way I'd like to."

The 26-year-old righthander allowed three runs and four hits in
6 1/3 innings, striking out five and walking three.

"It's good to see that our guys made the most of four hits, but
I thought overall we had some good at-bats in the game," Black
said. "(Hill) was tough. This guy's got a good arm. He's going
to win some games. But, I thought our guys had some good
at-bats against him."

Hill surrendered just one hit through the first three innings
before Brian Giles singled to center to lead off the fourth.
Adrian Gonzalez followed with a double to deep right, plating
Giles for the game's first run and his National-League leading
26th RBI.

Rookie Kevin Kouzmanoff broke out of his slump with a triple off
Hill in the seventh inning, driving home Mike Cameron with an
insurance run. It was just his fourth extra-base hit of the
season. He entered Tuesday's game batting just .113 (8-for-71)
with one home run.

"When that ball went up in the air, we knew he hit it well,"
Black said. "It was great to see that he got a hit. We're all
behind this fella. He's working extremely hard during batting
practice with (hitting coach Merv Rettenmund). We're hoping
that there is more of that to come."

Hill was removed following the triple, and Kouzmanoff scored
when Oscar Robles greeted reliever Micah Bowie with a squeeze
bunt.

"It's not anything overly creative," Black said of the squeeze
play. "There are certain instances where you put on some
baseball plays and they work."

The rubber game of the series is here on Wednesday as the
Nationals look to win a series for the first time in 2007.

"It has to get better," Acta said. "Those guys are a lot better
than what they're showing now. It'll come."